Futures Falling; Boeing Down Nearly 4% After 787s Grounded

By Sam Mamudi

Courtesy of Kenichi Kawamura

Emergency

Futures for the leading stock indexes are down a fraction ahead of Wednesday’s bell.

Boeing (BA) is going to come under a lot of scrutiny today after the emergency landing of a 787 Dreamliner in Japan last night led to the grounding of all the planes in Japan. Both All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines said they will ground their 787 fleets, a total of 22 planes. Boeing’s stock is down 3.6% right now, after falling as much as 4.8% in earlier premarket trades.

Also falling are shares of General Motors (GM), down about 2% after the automaker said it expects only modest profit increase this year. The guidance is notable in of itself as it’s the first GM has offered since the financial crisis according to Bloomberg — that’s clearly a good thing, albeit the message was one that investors don’t seem too happy to hear:

The automaker, which will replace 70 percent of its U.S. lineup in a year and a half, faces increased costs in North America related to those vehicle introductions and squeezed margins in international operations because of increased competition in China, executives said. The European industry is also expected to decrease around 4 percent, GM said.

“The second half of the year is going to be better than the first half,” said Chuck Stevens, chief financial officer for North America. “We’re going to be launching the Impala here later in Q1 then start the cadence with the new” pickups.

GM wants to increase North America’s Ebit to 10 percent eventually from 8 percent, through picking up increased sales from an improving market and also increased efficiencies from next-generation global platforms, he said.

The insurer will create a new parent company, and the outstanding senior and subordinated notes will remain obligations of the old parent, Richmond, Virginia-based Genworth said today in a statement distributed by PR Newswire.

The switch will “remove the U.S. mortgage insurance subsidiaries from the companies covered by the indenture governing Genworth’s senior notes,” the insurer said in the statement.

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